{"id":253,"date":"2008-12-06T22:11:11","date_gmt":"2008-12-07T06:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=253"},"modified":"2008-12-06T22:28:21","modified_gmt":"2008-12-07T06:28:21","slug":"shoot-till-you-cant-shoot-any-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/06\/shoot-till-you-cant-shoot-any-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Shoot Till You Can’t Shoot Any More"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a lot of talk amongst photographers about shooting in the golden hours – around sunrise and sunset.\u00a0 There’s no disagreement that the light is wonderful at those times of the day.\u00a0 The low angle gives excitingly long shadows and the fact that the sunlight has to travel through more of our atmosphere means it’s a bit softer and a lot warmer.<\/p>\n

So you often find a lot of photographers lining up for sunset shoots at iconic locations.\u00a0 The bridge over the Virgin River in Zion is a perfect example.\u00a0 I’ve got to admit, I love to shoot sunsets from the bridge myself.\u00a0 Most photographers will arrive early and stay about 20 minutes after the sun disappears below the horizon at which time the pack up and head off to dinner.<\/p>\n

I like to stay till I can’t shoot any more.\u00a0 The light show isn’t over by any means when the glow on the clouds fades.\u00a0 It’s just a lot more subtle.\u00a0 As the light fades exposure times increase and when you get up to 30 seconds then ISO starts to bump up.<\/p>\n

Why do I like this light so much?\u00a0 Well, because there is so much going on.\u00a0 Many complex and intricate things are going on in the sky above.\u00a0 You end up getting a delicate play of warm and cool light.\u00a0 Everything is enveloped in a quiet, soft luminance.\u00a0 It can be a magic unlike any other time of day.<\/p>\n

I was shooting on that famous bridge in Zion back in November.\u00a0 If it hadn’t been for my two friends shooting with me I would have been the only one on the bridge.\u00a0 Everyone else had long gone.\u00a0 I was shooting HDR, 5 bracketed shots, something I’ve found to be very effective (don’t forget, the sky stays bright long after the sun disappears).\u00a0 Each shot was varied by 1 1\/3 stop.\u00a0 Post processing consisted of Photomatix and a little Light Room.\u00a0 Here’s what I got.\u00a0 (You can click on these images to enlarge them.)<\/p>\n

\"Watchman<\/a>
Watchman at Twilight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few weeks before I took this Zion twilight shot I found myself in Death Valley on the Mesquite Flats Dunes, again\u00a0at sunset.\u00a0 I set up on this one composition and shot it for about an hour and a half.\u00a0 Many people like the stark contrast created by the sun playing on the undulating surfaces of the dunes.\u00a0 I like it too.<\/p>\n

\"Mescuite<\/a>
Mesquite Dunes Sunset<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0But a while later comes the real show, at least for my money.\u00a0 The play of colors becomes outrageous with reds, magentas, purples, oranges, yellows and blues.\u00a0 And I love the forms and textures of the sand.\u00a0 It’s truly amazing.<\/p>\n

\"Mesquite<\/a>
Mesquite Dunes Twilight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So for my money, you’ll see me out there (usually by myself) until I can’t shoot any more.\u00a0 Hey, why don’t you join me and see for yourself.<\/p>\n

Then and only then I’ll pack up my gear and head off for dinner.<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 All of the above photographs are HDR, not just Zion.<\/p>\n

To see more of my work go to Ralph Nordstrom Photography<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(510)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a lot of talk amongst photographers about shooting in the golden hours – around sunrise and sunset.\u00a0 There’s no disagreement that the light is wonderful at those times of the day.\u00a0 The low angle gives excitingly long shadows and the fact that the sunlight has to travel through more of our atmosphere means it’s … Continue reading “Shoot Till You Can’t Shoot Any More”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[64,6],"tags":[87,66,187,15,23,191,14],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to","category-journal","tag-death-valley","tag-hdr","tag-high-dynamic-range","tag-national-park","tag-sunset","tag-twilight","tag-zion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-45","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}